Chasingame.com discussion forum

I guess 3G will be gone soon in favor of 4G. Any speculation yet on when?

Had a call from a bud this morning out in Idaho that uses several of my Yagi antennas. He wanted to know if they would work with 4G. 0ne antenna Is connecting a Covert cell cam to a tower 30 miles away. Will it still work with 4G??? I understand 4G will still use a 850 MHz carrier signal which will be good if true. But since they will be packing much more data on the carrier I suspect the antennas will require more rigid specs.

Another bud is about fed up with HCO Outdoors. They keep sending him 4G Spartan replacement cams that don’t work. His last one worked less than one day. That was the 3rd or 4th.

My 3G Spartan is still sending pics. It’s going on 3 years old. Used an external btry and solar panel.

I still think cell cams should be modular. Why can’t we just replace the communication module???

Like to get a discussion on this going.

Verizon 3g will be sunsetting in December 2019, no Verizon 3g devices can be activated after June 30th of 2018, not just cell cameras but any 3g device (phones, tablets, watches....). ATT has not announced a sunset date. As far as the module being replaceable, I don't think the carriers would allow it, If they did I'm sure it would be done to cell phones all the time.

Actually the replaceable module idea is a good one. Little Acorn had this feature several years ago. I still want this in a camera.

Suppose you buy Camera X for $199, then later on you buy the cellular module for $99. You order AT&T or Verizon. You may need to upgrade the firmware manually at this point but no big deal. I think this is a nice strategy.

Moultrie solves this by having an external modem. Its another "thingy" hanging on the tree with a cable that can wiggle or get yanked or chewed on.

I prefer the more turnkey all in one approach but there are pros and cons to everything.

With the Acorn, you open the bottom flap and press a button and an interface card pulls out. This is the modem.

I do not know if they now still use this design or not. Mr Wang, from Acorn, who once worked at Boly Media, was at the ATA show and demonstrated this to me.

Our Ridgetec cellular cameras a modular cellular modem. It is not user replaceable though (warranty wise) but actually you remove 8 screws and unplug the modem and put a new one in. You can easily bend some pins though. I did it.

I will be reviewing the 2019 RidgeTec Lookout 4G LTE soon. I also plan to give away several here on Chasingame and offer Field Staff and Prostaff positions where you can order cameras at our cost.

If you have aideas on how to best run a give away topic here on Chasigname let me know. I think the last time someone had a contest they had picked a number between 1 and 10000 and people would offer up guess and the closest one would win. Does anyone remember that?

Anyone who is interested in field Staff or Prostaff can contact me.

I will soon be selling the Lookout on the Chasingame store.

From HCO on Verizon 3G camera:

"the 3G Verizon camera will only work wirelessly up til the end of Dec 2019, when Verizon shuts down their CDMA network."

Any scuttlebutt on AT&T and 3G? When will it be shut off?

Any scuttlebutt on AT&T and 3G? When will it be shut off?

Nothing yet

This was just posted on a FB page:

http://sageplan.com/3g-sunset-on-the-horizon/

that's a good time then to trade in the covert for a newer model. there's a fee, but pretty darn sweet that they even offer that.

up here in Canada, our new network is LTE. guessing that's just a different name for 4G equivalent.

Swapping cell modules because of new cell technology would probably require a new simm card. That shouldn’t cause much problems for the phone companies.

The module would still require the phone number and starting address/length of the data to be sent plus power. That info could be passed to the module via a short USB cable or a small plug in card. Would also need a shielded cable for the antenna.

Has anyone ever seen such a thing on any cell device?

I have not said much but my future should be starting with this:
http://www.ridgetecoutdoors.com/product ... ra-lookout

I plan to distribute and sell these in the USA as well as here on Chasingame.com store.

My plan is to give a camera away each week until black friday. I just need some help deciding how to create a fair giveaway.

I have worked a year designing this camera and the web portal and mobile apps.

I have not made much noise about it but I will make an announcement this week. A year and a half ago I quit my job to do this full time. This is my project and my product and my goal is to make an honest living selling and supporting these.

any thoughts ?

So what is going to be the cost of the data plans?

First of all, Plan information about how the Pay as you plan works. Let me know if you have questions about this:

https://portal.ridgetec.com/help/plans" target="_blank

This is No Contract Pricing. You can purchase by the month, by every 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months.

The initial month for the Lookout will be 100% FREE. No credit card is required. Just insert your SD card, Batteries, Add your plan to your free account and the camera will begin to operate for one month for the full 5000 points.




The more months you pre-purchase of course it gets cheaper per month. the plan places 5000 Image points for each month purchased into your plan. the link above explains what image Points are and how they are used.

US Pricing for AT&T

1 Month $12.95
3 Months $37.25
6 Months $73.50
12 Months $141.

There are no premium charges. You use Image Points only for uploads. there is one exception is you turn on Remote Control and use SMS there is a .10 cent fee per SMS sent to the camera.

If you use more than 5000 points in a given month you can purchase a $10 Points Reserve which is approx 4000 points to be used from the time of purchase with no end date. The points reserve never expires and these points cost the same as the monthly plan points. The points reserve is primarily if you occasionally go over your plan points the costs are deducted from the reserve and it helps reduce the number of charges to your credit card.

the system uses a billing cycle so all you data plans (If you run more than one) are billed as a consolidated billing on the same day and of course this all depends on the duration.

You can elect to have your plan Auto-Bill (automatic renewal) as well as Auto-Reserve (automatically fill your reserve on an as needed basis. If you do not want your credit card billed, just un check two boxes and it will never get billed until you are ready to renew your plan at some point.

All points cost you the same whether you use 5000, 10,000, etc. The cost per point for your plan never rises. It is truly flat rate pricing. There are no extra or hidden fees like a charge to update your settings or a premium fee to request a high res or original photo.

My goal is to have a single plan. there is no need for you to have to choose a tier and wonder which tier was the right choice.

The more months you buy simply lowers the monthly cost but it is still a single no contract flat rate plan.

One Point is one Standard resolution photo. so with 5000 points you can upload 5000 photos per month. At any time you can request a high res or a video (if you are in video). These high res and video requests use more of your points but at the same rate. Unlike some vendors who may charge .25 to update your settings and .80 per each high res... I feel that this is not fair and amounts to nickel and diming the customer so I have worked hard to try and make the plan understandable, flat rate and fair.

I hope that makes some sense. this system is designed by and for camera users, not some contractor in eastern Europe or India.

The Lookout will upload photos or videos to the portal.

The Verizon pricing will be only slightly higher. we are finalizing Verizon now and I will hold off on publishing the pricing until I am 100% on it. the Verizon and the AT&T versions of the camera will retail for $399. Both are 4G LTE. The AT&T camera will still have 3G fall back until there is no more 3G (?? 2021 ??)

Let me know if you have any questions. I am looking for people interested in being a ProStaffer. Let me know if you want more information on this and what we can offer as far as discounts to prostaffers.

Something like the Bushnell which offers first month free and I have the one month 9.99 1500 photos. Great battery longevity as they have been in as long as the Covert and Spartan and still register full power after 900 photos. Great photos too